After finishing Borg, I just read Tony Campolo’s Speaking my mind. I think it is far from his best work, but maybe Borg is too tough a competition. Even at less than his best, Campolo’s challenges to the face of modern evangelicalism are thought provoking (and would be acceptable to a larger evangelical audience than Borg). Of, course anybody in anyway attracted to fundamentalism will find them both intolerable. I love them. And the combination of their presentations has provoked this contemplation on universalism/second chances/the ultimate relationship of God and humanity.
What if we read the creation story of Genesis with the end in mind instead of arguing about what is fact, myth, or nonsense about our origins?
What has me going is the idea that humans can reject God and choose to go to hell (whatever we imagine that to actually be). Campolo gives a reasonably fair discussion of the views that the cross applied to all humanity, and that in the end all will be with God. Then, he rejects the idea based on the need for justice; the need for a negative choice to make the positive choice real; and Bible verses which speak of judgment after death. He is mostly trying to cause evangelicals to think enough to admit we may not know everything and quit being so offensive to the rest of the world.
So, back to Genesis! No matter which approach you take, it is a story of humanity rejecting the instruction of God and trying to become godlike ourselves. This is very similar to the arguments I just read for eternal damnation — that we are free and capable of rejecting God. But, that is not how the story of origins plays out. While God is absent, they are tempted and commit wrong. And, that is where most sermons focus along with the loss of paradise and the need for a future Savior.
But, something more happens in the story itself. They only have to hear God coming and they are filled with shame and remorse. AND, when God calls out to them, they answer! They accept God’s provision for their shame and nakedness, the consequences of having chosen to know evil, and the promise of deliverance. I am thinking via keyboard here 
, but what if we take that as an archetype of the response of humans to actual encounters with the Divine?
When actually brought back into the presence of the Divine; they answer, submit, and live on in relationship with their Creator. They are saved from themselves and their weakness. Why should we expect it to be less now or in the future?
Most people I know who reject Christianity are doing exactly that — rejecting a religion and a human organizational structure — not Jesus. Much of humanity has lived and died without hearing of either Jesus or the Church. When the gospel has been brought to new groups, it has often been wrapped in the flag of some empire and accompanied by numerous requirements to live like people from the missionaries’ home culture –instead of offering a simple encounter with the Divine Creator, Sustainer, and Finisher of all things. When they reject our empire, we condemn them to hell as having rejected Christ.
I have a new image as I meditate today (drugs for kidney stones are involved too, so if this is too wild, I have a cop out in place! lol). Today I am picturing all of us hiding naked in the wonder of this not yet completely destroyed garden of plenty. I hear God coming. And I see the natural response of all humans in the actions of Adam and Eve. We stumble and stutter and try to blame each other. But face to face with the reality of the Divine (as opposed to the unavoidably flawed face of the human church) I see acceptance of the role of God as God. I see salvation.
It is no longer a stretch for me to see men and women after leaving this world encountering the Truth that is the loving Creator and worshiping. I actually find it hard to imagine any other response to coming into the very presence of Life and Love. I part with my much loved CS Lewis here. He presented images of people being able to look into that face and be repulsed. I see them finally having the scales of years of human anti-images of God fall from their eyes and truly behold the face of eternal all powerful Love. I see them finding salvation.
Others I greatly respect will disagree completely. It is OK. It calls me forward not to condemn, but to cease condemning — that is one of the barrier images we have placed between people and God. It calls me to become closer and closer to Jesus in order to get more and more out of the way of people encountering the Love beyond all reason here and now. Eternity will take care of itself. It sits in the hands of that same loving Father.
peace